Seventh Year
by psychoviolinist
Summary: Harry and his posse are about to start their seventh and final year at Hogwarts. Some...interesting...new measures have been implemented for the safety of the students, new teachers arrive, and Harry gets yet another shot at romance.
1. Chapter 1

A searing beam of sunlight hit Harry's eyes as the drapes in the room were pulled open in Ron's room. He slowly uncovered his face as his eyes adjusted to the light and took in his surroundings in the just-waking-up bleariness.

After a second of being disoriented, the now familiar surroundings of Ron's room greeted him. Several bright Chudley Cannons posters adorned the walls, and generally, the room was quite cluttered, but that gave it a cozy feel. Ron, with mussed hair from just getting out of bed, looked around groggily and squinted over toward the window, where the offending light was coming from. His not-so-little sister, Ginny, was standing near the small window, still holding the curtains, having just pulled them open, and looking at them with laughter in her eyes.

"Ginny, what're you doing here?" asked Ron.

"You two sure do look hilarious when you're just waking up. If I only had a camera with me…" she said. Ignoring their half-hearted groans, she continued, "Mum said that since we're expecting someone important today, everyone has to be up and looking decent by the time he arrives. But she won't say who he is! Harry, do you know?" she asked, staring him straight in the eye.

Harry shook his head as he ran his hands through his disheveled black hair. Then he reached for his glasses and climbed out of bed. After shooing Ginny out, Harry and Ron began the process of finding some clothes. Not many of their summer clothes met Mrs. Weasley's definition of "decent", but they tried their hardest. Harry ended up with a pair of nicely fitting jeans, a black button-down shirt over a white Weird Sisters t-shirt, and a pair of black skater-type shoes. Ron went all out and donned khakis and a red button-down that clashed strikingly with his hair. After checking each other to make sure that they didn't look like idiots, they brushed their teeth and headed downstairs to see if Mrs. Weasley would approve. Luckily, she did, and the boys began wondering about who the company was that was going to be showing up soon.

They didn't have to wonder for long, however. As they were finishing their cereal in the kitchen and talking softly with Ginny, under Mrs. Weasley's watchful eye, about who the mysterious visitor could be, there was a knock on the door and in came former Hogwarts professor, member of the Order of the Phoenix, and good friend of Harry's, Remus Lupin.

"Good morning, Molly, Ginny, boys," Lupin said warmly, "I had a bit of trouble stealing away, Mad-Eye with his 'constant vigilance' and all…I trust your summers are going well?"

They all proceeded to tell Lupin about their adventures with playing Quidditch in the garden, rooting up more lawn gnomes than they could count, ridding the Burrow of a boggart in an old trunk in the attic, and various other not-dangerous activities. Whilst nodding and smiling, and asking a clarification question here and there, Lupin slowly worked his way over to Harry and, waiting tactfully for a break in the conversation, said, "Harry, I was hoping we could have a little bit of a chat…"

"OK." Harry said, and led Lupin to the only place that he could think of where they could have a little privacy, Ron's bedroom. After shutting the door, they sat, each on either Ron's or Harry's beds, and faced each other.

"So, Harry, how has your summer been?" Lupin asked with a very serious look on his face.

Sensing that his friend was not asking about the 'normal' summer activities that he had been taking part in, he took a deep breath and began.

"Well," he started, "I don't really have much to say. It's obviously been a little different around here since school got out, but things have been fairly…normal."

"Any strange dreams or any instances of your scar hurting like it has before?" Lupin asked while pulling a small notepad and a quill with a broken black feather on it out of his coat pocket.

Harry shook his head. A momentary incomprehensible look crossed Lupin's face while he scribbled notes on the pad, but it was gone quickly and replaced by a warm smile.

"All right then. The Order will be glad to hear things are going as well as they can, given the circumstances. By the way, I have something for you that I found at Grimmauld Place last week while going through some boxes in Buckbeak's room. You know, we're still trying to clean the house out…we just keep finding more and more boxes of old things." Lupin stood and handed Harry a small, rectangular package tightly wrapped in brown paper.

Harry opened it carefully to find a leather-bound book. He looked up at Lupin questioningly, but at Lupin's urging, opened it to find pictures of very

familiar faces. On the first page Moody, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs grinned

up at him from under the huge oak tree that stood by the lake at Hogwarts.

"I've been looking for that for a while." said Lupin. "That whole book is full of pictures from our sixth and seventh years at Hogwarts. I thought you might like to have it." Harry nodded emphatically as Lupin continued. "Those were good times. A lot different than now, I must say. Someday I'll have to tell you the stories that go along with some of those pictures…I daresay you'd find them interesting, and strangely enough, somewhat like some of the adventures you and Mr. Weasley and Ms. Granger have had. But now I really must be getting back to the Order. I'll try to see you again before school starts in September."

Harry looked up, his eyes wide. "So Hogwarts is staying open?"

Remus grinned. "Of course it is. You didn't really think it would close, did you? But I do have to say that there are a few…interesting…changes taking place this year. However, I'm going to let you find out about those when you get there. Now, would you walk with me downstairs?"

They descended the rickety stairs and Lupin started out the door. Before finally closing it, he said softly to Harry, "Make sure and send an owl immediately should anything strange or out of the ordinary happen."

Then he was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

The remainder of summer break passed uneventfully. Things were so boring, in fact, that Harry and Ron were ecstatic when Hermione arrived a week before the end of break. Between the three of them they immediately started theorizing about the remaining Horcruxes and where they could be.

"You know, Harry," said Hermione after she had finished writing up a massive list of what the Horcruxes could be, including an old shoe and the Chamber of Secrets, "maybe Voldemort is just trying to make us think that the Horcruxes are in hard-to-find places. For all we know, they could be hidden right in front of our eyes!"

Ron looked at her incredulously. "Do you think he would really do that? I mean, come on…"

"Actually, you have a point, Hermione," said Harry. "It _is_ kind of in his style to hide things right under our noses. Remember the journal? We actually had it in our possession for awhile. And even _himself_, for crying out loud. He lived on the back of Quirrel's head for months. Maybe we are looking too far into this. But where, and what, could they be?"

No one had an answer to that. No matter how hard they thought, the trio couldn't come up with an explanation as to where the remaining Horcruxes could be hidden, or even what they could be.

"Well, let's think this through logically." said Harry. "We know for a fact that the diary was a Horcrux. I destroyed that one in the Chamber of Secrets."

"So that's one. Out of six." said Hermione.

"Right," continued Harry, "and we also know that Marvolo's ring was a Horcrux, but that one was destroyed too."

"That's two." said Hermione.

"OK, and we also know that Slytherin's locket is or was a Horcrux. The problem with that one is that it's missing. So we have no way of really knowing if it's been destroyed or not. And besides those three, there's one more that we can be sure of: Hufflepuff's cup. Again, though, we have no idea where it is or if it's been destroyed, but I think it's probably safe to say that it's still an active Horcrux."

"So that's four" said Hermione.

"Ok, so there have to be two more. Since there's an artifact from Slytherin and Hufflepuff, it's probably a good bet to say that the other two are most likely artifacts from Gryffindor and Ravenclaw. The only surviving artifacts from Gryffindor that we know of are the sword and the Sorting Hat. I highly doubt that the hat is a Horcrux, but we can check it out. The sword, on the other hand, has much more possibility. I had never seen it before I pulled it out of the hat in the Chamber of Secrets, so there's the off chance that it could have been in Voldemort's possession at some point."

Hermione looked apprehensive. "Harry, that sounds a little off to me, but I'm sure we can check both the sword and the hat once we get to Hogwarts. But are there any Ravenclaw artifacts that we know of?"

Harry grimaced. "That's the hardest part right now…we don't know of any. However, the school library probably has a book or three on Rowena Ravenclaw, so we should start there. But for now maybe we can find something in 'Hogwarts, A History.' Let's get to work!"

Several hours passed.

"I give up!" cried Ron after staring at the massive tome of Hogwarts history. "I just can't look at this anymore. Harry, for all we know, we could run into this missing Horcrux at Hogwarts or something. Let's give it a rest for awhile!"

They actually had to give it a rest, for the next morning, three owls arrived at the Burrow with a letter from Hogwarts for each of them. The sheets of parchment that they pulled out of their respective envelopes was covered in miniscule writing with the new security measures that were being put into place. Hermione cleared her throat and read the list aloud so that everyone could hear it.

"A list of the new measures being instituted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for the protection of the students and staff. One: all students must be inside the castle by seven o'clock each night, unless they are accompanied by a professor and have an adequate reason for being on the grounds or are taking part in a class such as Astronomy. Two: All students must be in their common rooms from eleven o'clock PM to six-thirty AM, unless there is a dire emergency. Three: All incoming and outgoing packages will be inspected with Dark Detectors to detect the presence of dark magic. Four: All students' belongings will be subject to non-invasive search when they arrive at Hogwarts. There are no exceptions to these rules. See you September first. Sincerely, Professor Minerva McGonagall." Hermione finished and looked around to see Mr. and Mrs. Weasley nodding approvingly and her fellow schoolmates shrugging and exchanging looks that said 'OK, we can deal with that'.

Later, up in Ron's room, out of earshot of Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, they discussed what the new measures meant.

"Well, not much really seems different from the past few years." Said Ginny, "Maybe there's something they're not telling us."

"Ginny, you're being paranoid!" said Ron.

"Ron, be nice," snapped Harry, "she could be right. They've probably put some new spells or something on the castle to make it safer."

"That's right." said Hermione. "The Ministry obviously doesn't want any more trouble at Hogwarts, so they're probably instituting some things to avoid any…problems."

They continued talking about what was going to be different at Hogwarts this year, until Mrs. Weasley came upstairs and told them all to get to bed. Tomorrow they were going to Diagon Alley.


End file.
